Posted on 02/18/2005 12:43:35 PM PST by Sax
Science Points to a 'Sixth Sense'
Thu Feb 17,11:47 PM ET Health - HealthDay
By Ed Edelson HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Ever get a gut feeling something just isn't quite right, and make a decision accordingly? Science is beginning to suggest those instincts may have roots deep in the brain.
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Research in young volunteers points to some kind of "sixth sense" -- a mechanism in the brain that picks up on subtle clues, then sends out subconscious signals of trouble ahead.
The finding could help explain certain intuitive phenomena seen among humans. For example, in the recent Asian tsunami, aboriginal people sought out higher ground in the moments before the disaster, as did many wild animals. Could subtle changes in weather or the environment have warned them early on?
Just such an early warning system may exist in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area important in processing complex information, according to a report by psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis. Their findings appear in the Feb. 18 issue of the journal Science.
In their experiments, the researchers challenged healthy young volunteers to a series of tricky visual tests aimed at setting up conflicting choices within the brain, explained Joshua Brown, a research associate in psychology who performed the study with Todd Braver, an associate professor of psychology.
During the experiments, the St. Louis team observed each participant's real-time brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
"We used a situation where we presented signals on a computer screen," Brown said. "If it was an arrow pointing left, they pushed the left button. If it pointed right, they pushed the right button."
But then the tricks began. First, the computer screen would occasionally show a larger arrow that required a participant to push a button other than the one just indicated by a first arrow. The time at which the second arrow was presented was gradually made longer, so that a participant was more likely to have pushed the wrong button.
Second, the arrow signals were preceded by colored dashes -- white for left, blue for right. The experiments were rigged so that participants eventually had an error rate of about 50 percent when shown a blue dash, but only 4 percent when shown a white dash.
While the volunteers weren't told of the rigging, "some of them had begun to figure it out, at least on a subconscious level," Brown said. As this dawning awareness emerged, the fMRI images showed increased activity in the anterior singulate cortex whenever the blue dash was flashed.
"The purpose was to see if the brain picked up on the blue color being associated with a large number of errors," Brown said. "It appears that this part of the brain is somehow figuring out things without you necessarily having to be consciously aware of it."
The report "has the potential of unifying different approaches to the anterior cingulate cortex," said William J. Gehring, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. "Researchers have been looking at the response to errors people make and also the response to negative events. This is tying those two together."
Still, Gehring said, "this is the sort of thing where you need additional research. The report is not specific about what is going on, and how closely the response is tied to awareness."
Gehring and Brown agreed that the findings have potential applications to psychiatric practice, but they lie far in the future.
Abnormalities of the anterior cingulate cortex have been associated with a number of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, Brown said.
"It's a little premature to say how this might help us treat individuals with mental illness," he said. "There's a lot we don't know about what goes wrong in mental illness. But if we understand how this works in healthy individuals, we will be in a better position to understand what goes wrong in mental illness."
Abnormal activity of the anterior cingular cortex has been linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder, Gehring said. "It's been shown that there is too much activity in this area. There is a general sense that things are going wrong, when actually they are not."
More information
A simple introduction to brain function is available from the University of Washington.
I knew it!
;-)
Boy....talk about pissing off the PC crowd...
Most scientist would say that the reason there were very few dead animals after the Tsunami was because of the sixth sense.
Wish my "6th sense" or the "3rd eye" or whatever would point me in the direction of the winning lotto ticket.
What-t-t-t-t? I hadn't heard this about aboriginal people in the tsunami, anyone else? Somehow I have a feeling that if a conservative ever suggested such a thing they'd be accused of all sorts of racism, particularly given the linkage to "wild animals."
"people do crap wedonunnerstan, and it appears itain'tjessourimagination....well justdamn"
I wouldn't doubt it. One of the dicta of the "situational awareness" portions of most self-defense classes is "if something seems wrong, it is." If you live long enough in stressful environments it's probably saved you at least once.
Here's an article I found from an Indian related web site about the aborigines tsunami early warning system. Who knows?
Tsunami Warning System of Aboriginal Tribes
By Manmohan Melville
We call ourselves the “civilized world”. We call them “aboriginal tribes”. Sometimes, when we are in a condescending mood, we smilingly refer to them as “the missing links with our primitive past”.
There are also five distinct aboriginal tribes that inhabit the islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago – the Jarawas, Onges, Shompens, Sentinelese and the Great Andamanese.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which form a part of the Indian nation, are situated in the Indian Ocean – almost 1,000 miles to the east of the mainland. They comprise of an archipelago of over 500 islands – 38 of which are populated.
The main modern settlements are around Port Blair (the capital town), on one of the northernmost islands. The cluster of towns near the capital see an influx of tourists – both Indian and foreign. And these islands are also home to members of scientific teams, Coast Guards and the Indian military forces.
On the other hand, the original, native tribes (now forming just 12% of the islands’ population) – by and large -- keep very much to themselves – living on the remote, scattered islands – in life-styles that have remained almost unchanged over the centuries. You can say that that they are almost “untouched by our modern civilization”. In fact, a few of the tribes have (what can be best described as) a healthy disdain for modern man and his civilized world!
On 26 December 2004, a massive, underwater earthquake took place near the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, triggering off 20 feet high tsunami waves that ravaged the coastlines of 12 countries along the rim of the Indian Ocean.
Now, it so happens that the beautiful islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago are situated a mere 60 nautical miles to the west of the probable underwater epicenter of those tsunami waves!
A Trail of Destruction
The tsunami waves left a trail of death and destruction wherever they struck along the coastlines! The islands of Andaman and Nicobar bore the brunt of the sea’s fury on that fateful day. The village of Kakana – on the central Car Nicobar Island – was once considered the ideal village, based on which the neighbouring villages modeled themselves. It had a power station, electricity, a school, banks, shops, concrete houses, roads and television. After the tsunami struck, however, the village was almost reduced to rubble.
Village after village on the coastlines of the scattered islands showed similar heartrending scenes. In addition, there was tremendous loss to life and thousands of persons were reported to be “missing”. A week after the disaster, the figures sent in from the islands showed about 700 dead and over 3,000 others missing.
And what about the natives?
Had the island tribes survived the fury of the tsunami? After all, most of the villages built on more modern standards had been flattened by the waves. The initial reports about the tribes that came in sounded most grim. At first, there was every reason to believe that none of the five tribes had survived!
Geographically, the southern islands of the Nicobar group are closest to the epicenter of the tsunami. And it is mainly on these islands that the aboriginal natives still live. (95% of the tribal folks live in the central and southern Nicobar Islands).
Initial sorties showed that many of the smaller islands of the Nicobar group had been totally submerged by the disaster. And there was a fear that many would never be seen again. And what about the natives?
In recent years, these tribes had already dwindled to very small numbers. The smallest tribe – the Sentinelese – numbered only 32, while the largest group – Jarawas – had about 226 members.
Had the indigenous tribes vanished under the waves?
A most welcome shower of arrows!
A few days after the tsunami struck, a Coast Guard helicopter was making a survey over Sentinel Island – the home of the Sentinelese tribes. On spotting some of the tribesmen on the beach, the curious pilot veered the helicopter towards them.
At once, the tribesmen sent an angry shower of arrows at the helicopter. That was taken as a sign that the tribe had not only survived but was as fighting fit as ever! Their arrows said it all – we have survived on our own and do not need your help – thank you!
The personnel in the helicopter clicked photographs of the tribesmen, with their bows in hand, as proof to show that the aborigines had survived the natural disaster.
On other tribal islands, it was found that the salt water from the tsunami had contaminated the water holes. In these areas, the Air Force airdropped food packages for the tribes.
Ancient, native warning systems
The next question that surfaced in everyone’s minds was – just how did these simple, unsophisticated people manage to save themselves? After all, many of the larger bases on the islands had almost been flattened and hundreds of civilians – caught unawares -- had been washed into the sea.
The probable answer lies in the ancient, ancestral warning system that these tribes have evolved over the centuries. Their system is simple and unique. The tribes-people live in close harmony with nature and with the local flora and fauna. They seem to have an intense system of by which they observe their fellow-creatures. The cries of the birds, the frenzy of the smaller mammals, even the change in the swimming pattern of the marine animals – all give them clues and signals of approaching natural calamities -- like storms or tidal waves.
It is a system that has been developed – almost through natural instinct – by their forefathers and which have been passed down from generation to generation. Probably, as the tribes-people read the signs on that fateful day, they began to move their people inwards and upwards to higher grounds just before the tsunami struck.
The surveys made later by the Coast Guards confirmed this – all five of the indigenous tribes had “instinctively” moved to safer, high ground.
A lesson for the civilized people
Anthropologists have further confirmed that these tribes probably trace their traditions back 20,000 years – each generation adding its own knowledge to the existing pool of information.
This knowledge has not yet been completely recorded and studied by “civilized” man. Probably hidden somewhere in the knowledge that the tribes have there may be some methods that can be developed to form a warning system that will save future generations of the civilized world from the destruction by the forces of nature.
With the trauma of the tsunami fresh in our minds, this may be the right time for the “civilized people” to start that study – in a spirit of true humility. And probably this is the right point to end this narrative, but not before adding this moral to the tale -- the next time we refer to ourselves as the “civilized world” -- stop and think!
There’s a lot we have to learn from the so-called “primitive” people!
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as one might respond..."no sh*t sherlock"...sometimes you just look at somebody and instinctively veer off...yer brain says to you, "That freak, in my exquisite body of knowledge, is completely unstable, and you should either kill it immediately, or make post haste towards the abutting county." and anyone reading this who doesn't know what I'm talking about is a recently discovered white-worm life-form from some isolated underground cave.
abutting may be replaced with adjacent
Deeply insensitive to white worms everywhere. Expect to be hearing from the White Worm Anti-Defamation League ;-)
No sixth sense there...tribal lore IIRC.
Not to say there can't be alternate ways of perceiving and processing information.
Just that it's better not to exaggerate.
exactly...people who live on and off the land are, after a fashion, connected to it...especially in a more primitive setting where there is no concrete, asphalt, high-rises, etc...the subtle shaking is noticeable, the trees sway with no breeze, the animals shut up and run...oh ya, something wicked this way comes...it's not sixth sense as much as it is just awareness of environment...and every person has control over that
It is ridiculous to call this a "sixth sense". It is simply using the available senses in an efficient way. Some people are better at picking up and processing subtle clues - with their existing senses.
They had an oral tradition that said if the earth shook, a giant wave would follow. They felt the earthquake, and headed for the hills. Another group in Indonesia, who had never experienced a tsunami, also had an oral tradition that told them when the tide goes out and the fish flop on the seafloor, a giant wave is imminent. They too headed for the hills and survived.
That's not a "sense", it's processing.
Most people have been programmed or programmed themselves to ignore these "feelings". I know I've been stung by ignoring it. I try real hard not to ignore it now and I tell myself I won't do that anymore, but I bet I still do.
OK, my nose processes the smell of strawberrys and lemons. Why split hairs?
If the perceived danger is processed unconsciously and you aren't aware of the danger signs, it's the same thing as a "sixth sense"
That's not true. Your nose senses those smells but your brain does all the processing.
now that's what I call interesting.It's also why I always question peoples faith, and their motives, but never the underlying reasons that brought them to the point. I remember the day my brother killed me, he didn't mean to, but when I floated there on the ceiling watching him hack at the clothesline around my neck with Mom's good paring knife, which no one was ever allowed to touch, I thought to myself..."damn, he's gonna get in trouble."...I have never, either before or after, seen a sky quite that cobalt color. It was truly exquisite. I can see my minibike, and the spring-induced ruts in the tractor trail as clearly as my keyboard...and I know there's crap nobody can explain, and it makes me laugh
Saw a David Blaine (sp) type magician my freshman year at college. His big rant was 'the power of the mind'. He wrote a number on a white 6" x 6" card and faced it away from the audience. He then told us to concentrate on the card for about two minutes (absolute silence) and to try and determine what the number was. My guess was 41, and when he turned it and the number was 41, about 2/3 of the audience went WOW, as that was the number they also had. Never have forgotten that (but most other memories of that year are 'up in smoke'. Absolutely a sixth sense, IMHO
and the 6th sense senses the problem, and the brain processes it, right?
this is what oxygen deprivation does to some people, you whack
The article is mainly gobbledygook. Other articles stated it in 1/10th the space: They knew from their forefathers that if the water of the ocean suddenly receded, something bad was going to happen, and they should seek higher ground.
Remembering this, they did what their elders always told them to do. No observing the fish in the sea or having an intimate connection with the flora and fauna. Just plain old common sense passed down over generations.
OTOH, look at the videos of the resort areas. The tide rapidly went out and people there went out to look at it or pick up 'free fish'. Then the wave came and swept them away.
Yikes!
White worm life from underground caves?
I'd veer off from that...definitely.
<<<listening to Tim Mcgraw album, "Live like you were dying" on AOL...I haven't liked country since Conway Twitty died, but this ain't bad.
Sixth sense doesn't imply magic, esp, or some hocus pokus. It may be more like a 'virtual' sense that takes place in the working subconscious mind to help in processing incredibly complex information from the existing five senses, or interpreting subtle nuances, but could be just as real as taste, touch, vision, hearing, smell. Anyway it appears that sixth sense is a stop-gap term until the process can be more clearly defined and appropriately named. It's obviously taking place in regions of the brain that distinquish it from regular processing.
It doesn't take much for you to amuse yourself, does it?
lolol...I call my kids "little white bugs"...because they'd rather stay inside than go out, and when they do, they get sniffles and such..."damned little white bugs, raised in darkness and die in the sunlight of day"
When making things up, it makes sense to make up things that are reasonable and possibly believable.
Once we wire everyone's anterior singulate cortex to a monitor, maybe we can improve our classroom regimen through feedback to the teacher or student, but to imply that this evidences any sort of general innate intuitiveness interrelated to the other known senses as a predictor for future events is a far stretch of the data.
Recognizing something as a problem is itself the result of processing.
I read somewhere that the reason we cringe when fingernails are scratched on a blackboard is that it is the same sound a saber toothed tigers claws make on a rock just before it pounces.
How they know that I have no idea. LOL
Well, the word "sense" itself is a misnomer... not usually a good start in trying to find the truth to something.
I do think occasionally...try this out, it's new, but if most people don't think it sucks, maybe I can charge somebody a buck to print it...Squirming
It took Science to learn that? We've known that forever.
The one benefit that wild animals share is not being hindered by the impulse to reason danger before fleeing, this allows a faster retreat and, in the case of a tsunami, the ability to outrun the rising tide; but animals are found dead after earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes routinely, they just aren't counted among the dead due to the far more important task of looking for survivors and treating the injured people.
Yes, there were som islands in the main path of the Tsunami that have some really primitive (and dangerous) peoples on them. They are left alone by the Indian Gov. like "Indians" on a reservation in order to preserve their "culture" I believe they migrated to these islands from Africa centuries ago. They appear to have survived the disaster with little loss of life if any...........
I'm a very logical scientist and in science facts are very stubborn things.
"easily amused"----- My dog and I play hide and seek around the house. I hide, she finds me. It amuses both of us. (BTW, I have a lot of spare time on my hands).
Then what is the basis for your statement "Most scientists ..."
I think the tsunami is an incredibly bad example. This is a reporter writing the article not the scientists. Intuition is not what is being described here, for intuition implies there is no rational thought process taking place to come to a conclusion. The way I read the article is that there is a very complex process taking place at a subconscious level and that the 'sense' described would be like coming up with an 'estimate' while the computations are still taking place. Kind of like with all this data acessed from years of experience being complied with a stream of incoming live data from all the existing 5 senses, the brain can guess at the outcome before it's fully realized by the consciousness. Anyway, that was just my take..
yes, I agree - the reporter wrote that because it's something people recognize easily. But it may ultimately make job of the scientists more difficult.
The other five senses, the true ones, were on duty and constantly sending information to the brain, apparently the receiving was performed by the anterior singulate cortex as that is where the MRI registered the activity; what was different in this test was that the non-dominant pattern was also detected by more than 50% of the subjects which does indicate that a higher level of awareness might exist in the average brain than previously assumed, nothing more.
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